Spare tire with factory sub-woofer removed, this is where the stealth box is going to be installed

Date: 04/14/2012

Views: 854

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Initial materials used to build the box. I ended up buying another gallon of resin and two (2) cans of Bondo-Glass

Date: 04/14/2012

Views: 782

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Two (2) sheets of 1/2" MDF for the box face

Date: 04/14/2012

Views: 745

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Blocks to elevate the foam support around the spare, this gives me room to build up the lip of the enclosure and gain much needed volume

Date: 04/14/2012

Views: 822

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Make sure it's level before taping the blocks with gorilla tape

Date: 04/14/2012

Views: 859

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Eclipse XA1000 Mono-block amplifier. This will be the 3rd car I've used this amp in and I love it! I was playing around with mounting the amp in the cargo area, but settled with mounting it under the driver's seat.

Date: 04/14/2012

Views: 1788

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Fiberglass prep work - Foil

Date: 04/14/2012

Views: 1924

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Building up the lip of the enclosure for additional volume

Date: 04/14/2012

Views: 2089

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More foil

Date: 04/14/2012

Views: 754

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Now the tape

Date: 04/14/2012

Views: 2339

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More tape

Date: 04/14/2012

Views: 796

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Even more tape - I should have taped up the lip as well, but it turned out ok

Date: 04/14/2012

Views: 2450

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Making sure the trunk is safe from resin

Date: 04/14/2012

Views: 790

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Prepping the fiberglass for initial application

Date: 04/14/2012

Views: 745

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First application of glass. Slow and steady is the key, you want to make sure you don't have any bubbles etc.

Date: 04/14/2012

Views: 678

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I realized after bending over and killing my back for hours that I could just remove the spare tire and work with it at a more comfortable table height

Date: 04/14/2012

Views: 721

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More fiberglass

Date: 04/14/2012

Views: 729

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A lot of fiberglass for this enclosure, a minimum of 6 overlapping layers by the time it's done

Date: 04/15/2012

Views: 797

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This is the trunk with the elevated supports, almost no distinguishable difference from the first pic

Date: 04/15/2012

Views: 724

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Strips of woven fiberglass cloth to fortify the lip of the enclosure

Date: 04/15/2012

Views: 902

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About half way through the glassing, I can now remove it from the spare tire

Date: 04/15/2012

Views: 836

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Unwrapping the back of the enclosure

Date: 04/15/2012

Views: 733

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Most all of the foil and tape came off, the rest had to be worked at and a small amount was embedded in the resin

Date: 04/15/2012

Views: 786

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Starting to look pretty decent

Date: 04/15/2012

Views: 810

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Many layers of glass later I fortified the inner lip of the enclosure with Bondo-Glass

Date: 04/19/2012

Views: 691

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Getting ready to cut out the top of the box with a home-made jig for my plunge router

Date: 04/22/2012

Views: 772

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I cut it out in three (3) passes so as not to overheat the cutting bit

Date: 04/22/2012

Views: 635

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A perfect circular cut - I LOVE IT!

Date: 04/22/2012

Views: 656

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Cutting out the sub ring for the 2nd piece to be laminated to the top of the enclosure

Date: 04/23/2012

Views: 747

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The router jig is the only way to go for these cuts

Date: 04/23/2012

Views: 765

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Test fit of the sub in the cut-out. The 2nd piece is cut from a piece of MDF I tried to free-hand cut for the top of the enclosure before creating the jig pictured above. It will be cut out in a 12x12 square and laminated to the top piece.

Date: 04/23/2012

Views: 793

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3/16's inch deep cut with a 1/2" rabbit bit to recess the sub a little more. Total recess will be 11/16"

Date: 04/23/2012

Views: 777

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Cutting out the sub ring for the top piece

Date: 04/23/2012

Views: 948

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The top and bottom piece together

Date: 04/23/2012

Views: 877

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There is a fair amount of recession so the sub has room to travel

Date: 04/23/2012

Views: 890

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1/2 inch round over on the inner lip

Date: 04/23/2012

Views: 795

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1/2 inch round-over on the outer lip of the top of the enclosure

Date: 04/23/2012

Views: 860

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Marking the cut-out for the speaker terminal

Date: 04/23/2012

Views: 679

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Cutting it out

Date: 04/23/2012

Views: 659

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Free-hand routing the recession for the speaker terminal

Date: 04/23/2012

Views: 808

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Speaker terminal nice and recessed

Date: 04/23/2012

Views: 688

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Speaker terminal screwed into place

Date: 04/23/2012

Views: 687

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Cutting out the 2nd piece of MDF

Date: 04/23/2012

Views: 730

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Laminating it to the top piece

Date: 04/23/2012

Views: 821

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Ample coating of fiberglass resin on the back of the enclosure top

Date: 04/25/2012

Views: 768

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Making sure to fill in any gaps around the speaker terminal cup with plenty of resin

Date: 04/25/2012

Views: 731

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The Bose factory amplifier (removed from under the front passenger seat)

Date: 04/25/2012

Views: 884

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Taken apart

Date: 04/25/2012

Views: 719

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Soldering on the amp turn-on lead

Date: 04/25/2012

Views: 841

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Soldering on the rear left and right pre-amp leads

Date: 04/25/2012

Views: 681

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Amp back in the factory location before running the cables under the carpet

Date: 04/25/2012

Views: 618

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Soldering the speaker leads to the speaker terminal cup

Date: 04/26/2012

Views: 640

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Test-fitting the enclosure

Date: 04/26/2012

Views: 644

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Using general purpose caulk to tack the back of the enclosure to the face

Date: 04/26/2012

Views: 742

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Trimming back the excess caulk before applying fiberglass

Date: 04/28/2012

Views: 735

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Applying 2 layers of fiberglass mat to fix the back of the enclosure to the face

Date: 04/28/2012

Views: 779

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Prepping the enclosure for application of bondo-glass

Date: 04/28/2012

Views: 888

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Application of the bondo-glass to re-enforce the lip of the enclosure

Date: 04/28/2012

Views: 804

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Getting ready to apply fiberglass resin to the inside joint between the back and face

Date: 04/28/2012

Views: 732

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Getting ready to spray the back of the enclosure with bed-liner

Date: 04/28/2012

Views: 743

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Bed-liner sprayed onto the back of the enclosure. It adds some grip and looks better than the bare/rough glass

Date: 04/28/2012

Views: 779

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Leads coming off the factory Bose amp ran under the carpet under the passenger seat

Date: 04/30/2012

Views: 799

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Eclipse XA1000 mounted under the drivers side front seat with wires all ran under the carpet

Date: 04/30/2012

Views: 983

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Masking off the top of the enclosure for priming

Date: 04/30/2012

Views: 873

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Shooting the first coat of primer

Date: 04/30/2012

Views: 995

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Shooting 2nd coat of primer (black)

Date: 04/30/2012

Views: 932

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Removing the foam support from the carpet using a bread knife (worked really well)

Date: 04/30/2012

Views: 954

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Support removed with very little damage (can be put back on later)

Date: 04/30/2012

Views: 826

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You can see the glue on the underside of the carpet

Date: 04/30/2012

Views: 837

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About 10oz of poly-fill

Date: 05/01/2012

Views: 790

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The new Polk MM1040DVC Sub

Date: 05/01/2012

Views: 829

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Shot with textured paint with the Polk sub fitted. I had to route out an additional 3/16 of an inch all the way around as it's outer diameter was larger than a standard 10" sub's dimensions